I expect some of you will have come across the following attitudes to writing:-

1. Outright dismissal of what you do.
2. Making light of what you do (not appreciating how important writing is to you).
   
3. Claims anyone can do it (so why aren't they then?).
   
4. People genuinely asking if it really matters.  (Yes it does.  You can tell a lot about a country in how it treats writers.  If a country is genuinely free, then allowing for the laws of libel, most people will be able to write what they mostly like when they like. There should also be the right to reply).
   
5. Children's writing is usually looked down on (when it shouldn't be.  Writing for children of whatever age range is difficult but if you get this right, you will encourage children to read for life.  Authors of books that are YA upwards, including myself, are genuinely grateful for our colleagues in children's writing.   People don't just come into bookshops to buy books.  They're there because they have a lifelong love of reading and that starts with reading children's classic literature etc).
   

Sometimes I think writers can "do themselves down" and I'd urge against that.  For my money, a "real writer" is one who is committed to writing regularly, whether that's daily, weekly or what have you, and whether they write fiction, non-fiction or both.  This topic came up as a response to my most successful (ever!) Facebook post about How to Tell You're a Real Writer (copy of the text only below).  This was written very much with tongue firmly in cheek.

How to tell you are a "real writer":-

1. You can feel almost murderous at the sight of a misplaced apostrophe.
2. You can talk about the "its" versus "it's" rule until the cows come home, though you do your best to avoid cliche (!).

3. You really don't understand people who claim they never read books.
4. You don't want to understand people who claim they never read books.
5. You do actually write (and feel very proud of yourself whether you've written 50 words or 5K).
6. You do know how to spell alliteration and, better still, can drop the word into conversation. (You do, too, much to the consternation of your family who have this nagging fear you are obsessed. You do not share this fear. You know you ARE obsessed and simply don't care).
7. You book your spot at Swanwick at midnight on the date they open to bookings. Can't take any chances now, can we?
8. Your conversations with your characters usually make more sense and are far more interesting than most conversations you have with non-writers, family and close friends excepted (but only if you're lucky with your family and friends).
9. The moment you hear you are going to be published is met by screams and whoops. Briefly you wonder where the noise is coming from and then realise it is coming from you. (You don't care about this either).
10. You absolutely have to have photos in your Facebook posts.

  Am back from a short break at the marvellous Swanwick Writers' Summer School and my post tonight ties in with my Chandler's Ford Today article, also online this evening, called Humorous Writing (and why it is a serious business).  I've used British English spelling incidentally.  Hope you enjoy the CFT post.  I think I've found my favourite all time feature image for this one (many thanks, Pixabay!).

Humour in fiction is so difficult to get right.  It is subjective (and nobody can know for certain what their readers' tastes are exactly here) and of course can range from subtle irony (Jane Austen) to outright farce.  But I do know that the best humour in fiction, of whatever kind, always comes from the characters.  They feed it.  It is not forced on them! 

Humour in fiction rings "true" when you feel, as the reader, Character X really would do this/say that and the funny situation/dialogue or what have you comes out of that.  So it boils down to how well you've set up your characters and how well you know them as you write them.  This doesn't stop you learning more about your characters as your story develops, far from it.  I think you can always tell when a writer really does have a grasp on their "people".  You will know how they will react most of the time.  This grasp increases the more the writer writes - so no shortcuts then! Humour of course so often comes out of people's reactions and the more the writer knows their characters, the more they will be able to "use" this.

Another aspect of fairytales I love is there often is humour in them.  Can you imagine the look on the stepmother's and Ugly Sisters' faces when they realise the unknown girl who is going to marry the Prince is Cinderella?  You have a wonderful combination of humour and poetic justice there I think!

Image Credit:  Image below is from Pixabay.

Given it is holiday time in the UK, I thought it timely to look into what your characters do to relax.  Why?  Because what they do here will tell the reader more about them.  It will show up whether your characters are "sporty", "arty" or what have you.  You can also show your characters' dedication to what they do to relax.  How would they treat anyone getting in the way of them trying to enjoy their usual wind-downs? Can you show your characters being obsessed by their hobby?

How did your characters decide on their ways to relax?  Family traditions?  Encouraged to join by friends?  How does their relaxation help them cope with whatever quest you are sending them on?

An appropriate title given it is August and holiday time!  I'm also off to the Swanwick Writers' Summer School soon so I too will be getting away from it all for a while.

Where do your characters go when they feel the need to get away from it all?  What makes them feel as if they have got to get away at all?  What pressures are they facing (especially those they've never faced before)?  Does the break refresh and help them or make them feel worse, knowing they've got to come back and face whatever it is they're taking a break from?

To a certain extent we need to get away from our stories in that we need to put them aside for a while before coming back to them and re-reading them with fresh eyes.  Doing this helps you to read the story as a reader and it can be amazing what flaws you then spot.  Another good thing about this is you also spot what was good about the story (particularly useful if you were feeling it was rubbish - it almost certainly isn't but will need work).  That can help reignite the spark which led you to create the story in the first place.

I'm on a theme this evening as my Facebook post tonight (for both my author page and book page) talk about this.  I share the text of this at the end of this post.

Of course the famous fairytale ending is "they all lived happily ever after" which, as a kid reading the stories, I loved.  Now?  Love the idea of it but the reality of life is somewhat different!  I have more sympathy now than I used to with those endings which are covered by the term "happy for now".  It's certainly more realistic and fantasy/fairytales do have to have some realism in them, I feel, for people to be able to identify with the characters and want to read their stories at all.

FROM MY FACEBOOK POST
How to finish a flash fiction piece then? I like to end my stories with a punch or where the reader knows my character is wrong (or is about to be proved wrong) but they don't know.

You sense a story to come - and of course there could be. One of the joys of writing flash fiction is there is nothing to stop you taking a very short piece and expanding it into a standard length short story or even a novel. I tend not to as I am thinking of the impact of my initial story and its ending and don't want to lessen that (and I could easily without meaning to!).

I think reading fairytales (traditional and modern) is important because:-

1. Most fairytales have a kernel of truth in them (so we should learn from them).
   
2. Most fairytales have a clear sense of right and wrong (and that can be reassuring in a world where that sense seems to have gone).
   
3. There is a clear moral message to them which again we should learn from. 
   
4. Characters don't get away with their villainy. (Oh if only that could be said in life!)
   
5. Characters are usually rewarded for their heroism or for doing the right thing in other ways.
   

I was thinking about this topic due to my related Chandler's Ford Today post for this week, which looks at collecting books and the (nice) surprises I've had when clearing out my late mother's collection of stories.

There should be surprises in books then.  Characters should be capable of surprising us yet at one and the same time there should be clues within the story that the character is actually up to the task. 

What you want to achieve is the reader being able to look back and realise the clues were there.  I love trying to guess at the outcome of the story as I read it and sometimes I get it right, sometimes I don't but the important thing is I am engaged with that tale.  The writer has done their work well and is keeping me reading that story until I get to the end and find out what did happen.